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Lake Report Lakereport.ca / Niagaranow.com Hyper-local news for Niagara-on-the-Lake
Canada’s most-decorated community newspaper
Vol. 6, Issue 32
Cenotaph committee needs $28k to complete urgent repairs
Boxer loses semifinal | Page 3 August 10, 2023
‘We have to say no’
Community urged to not tolerate vandalism of Pride crosswalk
Julia Sacco The Lake Report
The Niagara-on-the-Lake cenotaph needs your help. One of NOTL’s most recognizable landmarks is in desperate need of restoration and the cenotaph committee is $28,000 short of the $81,000 that is needed by Sept. 15 to complete the work in 2023. The committee, a partnership between the town and the Legion, is calling the community to action, hoping that those who already have pledged donations – and those who haven’t yet done so – will contribute immediately. So far, the committee has amassed $53,000 to restore the 101-year-old cenotaph and memorial clock tower. It commemorates the residents of Niagara-onthe-Lake who were killed in action during the two world wars. Donations can be made in person at the town administration offices at 1593 Four Mile Creek Rd. or the Canadian Legion Branch 124 at 410 King St., by mail to 1593 Four Mile Creek Rd., Box 1030, Virgil ON, L0S 1T0, or online at notl.com/ recreation-events/community-initiatives-events. Anyone who donates $25 or above will be issued a tax receipt.
People cover hateful comments painted on the Pride crosswalk. Police are investigating the damage as a possible hate crime. SOMER SLOBODIAN
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Somer Slobodian | Local Journalism Initiative | The Lake Report
fter four separate vandalism incidents, many Niagara-on-the-Lake residents now just seem to expect that the new rainbow crosswalk will continually be damaged. Many commenters in public, in letters to the editor and on social media have suggested such vandalism is just a fact of life. Suzin Schiff thinks that attitude is wrong and people should not accept repeated defacing of the crosswalk as a fact of life. “That makes me more sad, almost more sad than seeing the vandalism itself,” said Schiff,
who works in administration at the Shaw Festival. She got in touch with the town to organize a group photo at the crosswalk in support of LGBTQ+ community after vandals defaced the crosswalk for a third time on July 31. “I called the town and I said, ‘I need to talk to someone about this. Do you know that it’s here? What can we do? How can we respond?’” she said in an interview. “It’s not enough to see it and then clean it up,” she said. She wanted to show her sup-
port in-person, she said, and not just through social media or the newspaper — but to stand on the crosswalk where it happened. “We need to be physically present to feel our feet on the place where this transpired and to physically show people that we stand and support them and to show them that they should feel safe where they live,” she said. When the crosswalk was first put in, she said “it was very meaningful” to her. This topic has always been one that’s close to her heart since she
has friends and family who are queer, she said, and she’s always been a “strong ally” to the LGBTQ+ community. The group photo was scheduled last Friday at 9 a.m., barely two days after the damage from the third vandalism was cleaned up. However, people arrived to find the crosswalk defaced for a fourth time — this time with more hateful comments. She said it’s “disheartening for queer people or allies of queer
Medically assisted endings for people with Alzheimer’s Dr. William Brown Columnist Patients who suffer from dementia, of which Alzheimer’s disease is the
most common cause, are usually looked after by a spouse or partner, with the help perhaps of nearby family members when that’s possible and parttime support workers. It’s exhausting for those
who provide the care because it goes on so long and the situation only gets worse for the patient and those helping out. When home care no longer works, patients are usually transferred to a
long-term care facility, hopefully nearby, of which Niagara residents have several choices. But wherever the patient is looked after, the clinical course continues downhill as patients lose
their lifetime’s store of memories, struggle to make sense of the present and increasingly unable to form warm sustaining relationships with staff and Continued on Page 15
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